In a 2021 Hollywood Reporter directors’ roundtable, Regina King, an actress, producer, and director spoke of a “beautiful precious baby” who seems to have renowned jazz singers Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald living in her body. “If you close your eyes you’d think you’re hearing Sarah Vaughan.” In the corner of the Zoom roundtable, director Spike Lee wrote the name of this “precious baby:” the 22-year-old Samara Joy.

Raised in the Bronx neighborhood of Castle Hill – nicknamed the boogie-down Bronx – Joy grew up surrounded by music. Surprisingly, though, for a vocalist whose first album prompted The Guardian to proclaim classic American song safe in her young hand; she came late to jazz. Both her parents are from Philadelphia, her father coming from a long line of musicians and creatives; he himself is a bass player, singer, songwriter, and producer, having toured with gospel artist Andraé Crouch (he even gave an impromptu singing performance at Joy’s recent September 13th sold-out gig at the legendary Blue Note in New York City). His parents, Joy’s grandparents, Elder Goldwire and Ruth McLendon, both performed with the Philadelphia gospel group the Savettes. “Music was the norm,” she says.

Her youth in the Bronx was set to the music of her parent’s childhood: funk, soul, R&B. Given her breadth of knowledge and skill, it is shocking that Joy only came to Jazz in the last couple years. She performed in musicals in middle school, applying different ranges and colors to the voices of each character, and joined her church choir in high school, eventually becoming the worship leader. She was first exposed to jazz attending Fordham High School for the Arts where she performed with the jazz band; it was with this band that she won best vocalist at JALC’s Essentially Ellington competition. Still, it wasn’t until college when she was accepted to the State University of New York at Purchase’s acclaimed jazz program that she fell in love. Her jazz-obsessed, college friends introduced her to their favorite recordings; after hearing Sarah Vaughan’s “Lover Man” and Tadd Dameron’s recordings with trumpeter Fats Navarro she was hooked.

Joy started singing jazz at 18 and by 19 she had won the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition and was embarking on a residency at Dizzy’s Jazz Club at Lincoln Center. The day before it was set to start, due to the then-emerging Covid-19 pandemic, everything was canceled. And yet, by 21 she had released Samara Joy, her July 2021 dozen-song debut album under Whirlwind Recordings. The album was reviewed as deep, mature, and respectful of the craft. Former professors, guitarist Pasquale Grasso, and drummer Kenny Washington, formed the core of her band. And now, just a year later and following her extensive European tour, she has released her second album, “Linger Awhile.” Her debut album under Verve Records, the 10-song work “makes her case to join the likes of Sarah, Ella, and Bille as the next mononymous jazz singing sensation recorded by the venerable label.”

Just two days after its September 16th release, the album had well over 250,000 streams on Spotify. The softly-lit, romantic, black-and-white video for “Guess Who I Saw Today,” directed by Sontenish Myers – visually playing with silhouettes and referencing the film Waiting to Exhale – was released with the album on the 16th; as of September 27th, it had nearly 35K views on YouTube. Joy has more than 235,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and the two most popular songs from her debut album, “Everything Happens to Me” and “Stardust,” have nearly a million streams each. She performed the first track on her new album, “Can’t Get Out of This Mood,” on the Today Show on September 27th.

Sharing that these songs helped her develop her voice, Joy’s creative selection of standards for “Linger Awhile” highlight her interest in classic standards as well as her love for “crate-digging” to discover rare versions and lyrics. Some even feature original lyrics written by the vocalist; those on “Nostalgia (The Day I Knew),” for example, were born from an assignment for a jazz transcription class in college (taught by trumpet master Jon Faddis) and inspired by teen romance novels she was reading.

Joy has also accumulated quite the social media following; called “the voice of a new generation,” she is perhaps the first Gen Z jazz singing star. She has nearly 85K followers on Instagram and more than 180K on TikTok. Having only started on TikTok in January 2022, within a month she had already 100,000 followers, introducing the younger generation to classic standards several times older than they are. She shares that people even come up to her at shows, confessing that they found her on TikTok and just had to come see her perform. The comments under her videos are filled with compliments; one reads “Your voice is a warm Sunday afternoon,” another “I feel like I just went back in time.” The sentiment is certainly shared by critics, who have noted the way in which she transports listeners to some “romantic, long-lost supper club” and who called her voice timeless and irresistible yet refined, rich and velvety with exceptional control and range.

Joy, at just 22, has been celebrated for carefully keeping a classic style alive with love and understanding. She will spend the rest of the year touring legendary stages and performing in front of thousands of people. “This is only the beginning,” she promises. Her dreams are lofty. She tells Ebony Magazine: “Just like we need activists who are natural born leaders, we need [the art of song] as our way of escape. Making music that spreads joy is a form of resistance in the face of darkness. I want to help be a light for people.”

Instagram: @samarajoysings
CD/Vinyl: https://samarajoy.komi.io

Article by Sienna Ropert, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Alexa Dyer, Graphic Design Coordinator, PhotoBook Magazine
RADAR Created by Ayoka Lucas

RADAR: Samara Joy